Google Now is great, but it's not the only way to get useful information from Google on your smartphone. If you want Google Now-style data, but don't have a Jelly Bean (or rooted Ice Cream Sandwich) phone, just fire up Google Talk on your smartphone and add guru@googlelabs.com to your contact list. Ask Guru what you… »10/22/12 4:00am 10/22/12 4:00am

Google Talk is currently having a service outage. Since 3:40 am PST, Google Talk users have been able to log in, but receive error messages when they try to send a message. Google has been providing hourly updates on the outage. You can keep track of the status of the service by clicking the link. Update: It looks… »7/26/12 6:55am 7/26/12 6:55am

Chrome: Google's chat feature is useful for sending quick IMs and starting video chat sessions, but you can only view it when you're on a Google page like Gmail. Google has released an official Chrome extension that detaches it from your browser, allowing you to view it no matter what web page you're viewing. »2/22/12 4:30pm 2/22/12 4:30pm

Linux: Many Linux users love to accomplish as much as they can utilizing only the command line structure in Terminal. CenterIM lets you chat with your friends on GTalk, Jabber, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Chat, or AIM. Aside from the novelty, it is extremely resource-light and makes it easy to chat via SSH. »11/20/11 1:00pm 11/20/11 1:00pm

Google and AOL haven't said anything official yet, but it looks like they're slowly rolling out their deep AIM integration with Gtalk. We mentioned this when they first announced it, but it didn't work for us at the time—at some point in the past few days, however, we've gained the ability to add AIM users to our… »5/19/11 9:15am 5/19/11 9:15am

Thanks to video chat, staying in touch with friends, loved ones, and colleagues anywhere in the world has never been easier. Here's a look at five of the most popular applications that allow you to get a little face-time with your boss while you work from home, or say hello to a loved one who's away on a business… »5/15/11 9:00am 5/15/11 9:00am

Microsoft just bought Skype. The future of the service is unclear. Even so, Skype is hardly the only application on the market for real-time video chat with friends across the office or across the globe. This week we want to hear about your favorite tool to talk face-to-face with friends, family, or colleagues. »5/12/11 5:00pm 5/12/11 5:00pm

Over the next few days, Google is going to be changing its AIM support to something a little more tightly integrated. No longer will you have to sign into AIM separately from Google; you just sign into Google Talk and you can chat with your AIM friends straight from that account—either by adding them to your Google… »5/09/11 9:40am 5/09/11 9:40am

How could you get answers from Google faster than searching? Add Google's new Talk Guru to your Google Talk contacts, then ping him/her/it with your questions about the weather in Dallas, what $5 in Romanian leu equals in U.S. dollars, and translating words between many languages. »3/30/11 4:00am 3/30/11 4:00am

Gmail quietly, automatically saves your chat messages, as if they were emails. That makes copying, saving, or printing multiple chats across a few days pretty difficult. Enter Gmail Chat Exporter, a bookmarklet that creates a simple text chat history with any contact. »2/24/11 5:00am 2/24/11 5:00am

While you wouldn't want in-your-face updates for each of your RSS feeds, there may be certain feeds that require a more urgent action. Instead of sifting through your feeds to find them, free serice Notifixlite will IM you when it updates. »2/15/11 6:30am 2/15/11 6:30am

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at . You can…

Imo.im is like Meebo and other chat webapps: it can log you into Skype, Gchat, AIM, and other services, all at once. But with its new look, mobile apps, and Chrome desktop notifications, it may be the slickest web chat client around. »1/27/11 4:00am 1/27/11 4:00am

The Gmail team admits in a blog post that options for video, voice, and group chat were "curiously tucked away" in the lower-left corner, so they've taken steps to fix it. A new chat interface, pictured here, makes a video or voice chat much easier to activate, and if a friend lacks the proper plug-in for video chat,… »6/09/10 6:00am 6/09/10 6:00am

Do you get inopportune IM chats on your Android phone, even if you haven't activated the Google Talk application? There's a setting in the app that always makes you available. Here's how to turn it off. »2/01/10 6:00am 2/01/10 6:00am

The one big thing Google Voice doesn't offer, besides automated telemarketer taunting, is free voice-over-internet phone calling through your cellphone. On an Android phone, however, you can use the Gizmo5 service, Google Voice, and a free application to call anyone for free. »9/08/09 9:00am 9/08/09 9:00am

Windows/Mac/Linux: Pidgin has long been an easy way to use lots of different chat systems on your desktop. With its 2.6 release, Pidgin's finally catching up to the video, audio, and file transfer offerings of Google Talk, Yahoo, and others. »8/19/09 4:30am 8/19/09 4:30am